KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Introduction
Good afternoon, Chairman Emler and members of the Senate Ways and Means
Subcommittee on Higher Education. I am Kirk Schulz, President of Kansas State
University. With me this afternoon are Provost April Mason, Vice President for
Administration and Finance Bruce Shubert and Director for Legislative Affairs Sue
Peterson. Even though these are difficult and challenging times, I am very pleased to
come before you to report on Kansas State University. We are very aware of the
financial challenges faced by all Kansans and we know that we must sacrifice to
meet those challenges. Over the course of the last 18 months, K-State has endured
its share of the State’s budget burden.
Governor’s FY 2011 Budget Recommendation
K-State supports the Governor’s recommendation to maintain current funding levels
in FY 2011. We appreciate the difficulty in identifying additional revenue, but
further reducing our budget will significantly impact our ability to meet our core
purposes. Even with no further State General Fund reduction, K-State will need to
identify resources to fund a 12.5% increase in Group Health Insurance costs and to
fund handbook mandated salary adjustments.
Governor’s FY 2010 Budget
K-State’s FY 2010 State General Fund (SGF) appropriation has been reduced by $22
million (about 12%) from the beginning FY 2009 level. In addition to these cuts, KState had to identify about $7 million to fund increased costs for items such as
utilities, employee fringe benefits, faculty promotions, classified pay plan
adjustments and the minimum wage increase. K-State’s 3.9% tuition increase
generated about $6 million in additional resources. The result was K-State had to
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
reduce $23 million from the base budget. The problem was addressed by reducing
departmental budgets by $14 million (3.5% for all units and 5% for most
administrative units) and by using $9 million in temporary stimulus funding and
funds that had been set aside for one-time equipment purchases.
The base funding reductions have been made by holding approximately 200
positions vacant and partially meeting critical needs with part-time temporary
replacements, reducing our student employee labor force; and by cutting non-salary
expenditures. A soft hiring freeze on all non-critical vacant positions has been in
place for over a year. A suspension of the reclassification of classified positions has
been in place since summer 2008. Additionally, selected equipment and technology
purchases have been delayed. In making these decisions, we recognized the
necessity of teaching a full schedule of courses during the current academic year—
both from the perspective of allowing students to make satisfactory progress toward
graduation and from a tuition revenue generation standpoint. In that context, we
indicated that exceptions to the hiring freeze would be considered on a case-by-case
basis. Savings that accrue because of these actions have helped units meet their
individual budget reduction targets.
K-State has tried very hard to not significantly reduce course offerings but has
combined or delayed offerings of several sections across all colleges. As a result,
many faculty members are assigned heavier teaching loads, creating workload
discrepancies. For example, six faculty members in architecture are teaching
double studios, which are huge teaching loads with nearly 20 contact hours. These
increased teaching loads in all colleges greatly reduce faculty member’s ability to
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
contribute to masters and doctoral committees or to produce scholarly work and
competitive research opportunities.
Our adaptation to this reduced resource level is not complete. We still need to
identify about $15 million in further savings or new resources to address critical
needs. First, our current base operating budget is not sustainable – we need to
replace $9 million in temporary resources that are being used to pay for base
operations. Second, we need about $5 million to strategically restore resources that
have been cut from core campus academic units that are operating in a nonsustainable fashion - for example, some of the approximately 200 unfunded vacant
positions must be filled to ensure continuation of quality academic offerings
Finally, we need about $1 million in central resources for contingent needs.
Identifying the needed $15 million is extremely difficult. The result will be that KState will be permanently changed.
Since last August, the entire K-State community has been actively engaged in
determining how we should meet our budgetary challenges. Under a process agreed
to by K-State administration, faculty, staff and students, 1,400 ideas about potential
savings opportunities and revenue generation were submitted from across the
campus. Those ideas have been collected, organized, evaluated, posted on the KState web site and shared with the entire university. Discussions about how to
proceed are ongoing. The collaborative nature of this entire process has served us
well. The list of ideas and resultant discussions will help us through the current
difficult times and will provide the basis for improvement opportunities for years to
come.
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
These sacrifices and discussions are especially trying at K-State because we have
never been comparatively well-funded. To cite just one illustration of that point—
overall funding when compared to five other land-grant universities with similar
academic programs has ranged between 79% and 86% over the past 30 years. These
comparisons are based upon a detailed analysis of funding and expenditures for
similar programs at Colorado State University, Oklahoma State University, Iowa
State University, Oregon State University and North Carolina State University.
Because of the extraordinary efforts of our faculty, staff and students, we are
meeting our core mission. Our enrollment increased slightly in the fall and
continues to be strong this spring. Extramural research awards are running ahead of
last year’s level and we are fulfilling our service and outreach mission.
Budget Discussion
K-State has three distinct sub-agencies—the Main Campus, the Veterinary Medical
Center and Research and Extension. Each of these units receives its own State
General Fund appropriation. Because K-State Research and Extension has no ability
to generate tuition revenue, its budget has been impacted much more severely by the
State General Fund reductions in both FY 2009 and FY 2010. The impact has been
felt not only by 6 K-State colleges, but in every county across Kansas.
K-State has traditionally been a decentralized organization. We have always
believed that decisions are best made and resources are most efficiently used by unit
managers. Consequently, our resources are fully allocated and, by necessity, we
have engaged the entire campus in determining how to adapt to changing
circumstances. We have been actively discussing budget challenges for FY 2009
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
and FY 2010 and FY 2011 since fall 2008. A great deal of communication and
planning continues. Currently, we are in the process of evaluating campus feedback
and determining what steps to take that will allow us meet our core mission at
current funding levels.
Tuition
I cannot overemphasize the important role that tuition plays in our overall budget at
K-State. We use tuition revenue for faculty salaries, information infrastructure,
library holdings, instructional supplies and equipment, and student employee
salaries.
We would not have been able to maintain the quality of our academic
programs without additional tuition revenue. Seven years ago, K-State’s resident
tuition and required fees ranked 10th in the Big XII Conference and 127th of 177
institutions belonging to the National Association of State Universities and Land
Grant Colleges (NASULGC). This year, we rank 9th in the Big XII and 94th in the
NASULGC group. We continue working with the Student Senate Special
Committee to draft a tuition plan for the coming year that is supported by our
students. Those discussions focus on balancing affordability with maintaining the
quality of a K-State education.
Efficiencies
K-State has constantly sought more efficient ways to deliver our academic programs
and administer our university to meet enrollment demands, preserve program
quality, provide appropriate student services, and demonstrate effective stewardship
of natural resources. The following sections are extracted from a recent response to a
Legislative Post Audit report and are intended to demonstrate that we are efficient,
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
that we continuously strive to become more efficient and that, in addition to budget
cuts, other challenges exist.
Early Warning System for Low Enrollment classes: We have implemented an
“early warning” process to assist departments in the identification of low enrollment
classes. Each department and college is sent a list of low enrollment courses near
the end of each semester. This allows departments to make changes, combine
sections, or cancel classes prior to the start of the next semester. The department
heads will have to justify the need for retaining any low enrollment courses to the
Dean and Provost.
Changes in Course Offerings: We are also requesting that all departments examine
their recent class enrollments to determine whether current courses can be taught
less frequently or cancelled if enrollment trends suggest a history of low enrollment.
Changes in Structure: Our campus-wide communication resulted in numerous
suggestions for combining colleges, departments, or programs. Each of these
strategies will be examined for their merit and potential financial savings.
Collaborating with other universities to share course content, teachers, and
instructional programs:
Great Plains IDEA: The Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance
(IDEA) is an inter‐institutional alliance currently composed of 14 land grant
institutions with 14 more intending to join. Academic programs in the area of
human sciences are at the core of the Alliance. Each member institution offers
distance courses that can be taken by students from all member institutions, and
awards academic credit and degrees for programs in which they participate.
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Curricula are developed by inter‐institutional faculty teams. K-State garnered
the funding for the alliance and has served as the managing partner for the Great
Plains IDEA since its inception in 2001. K-State fully participates in six of the
seven Great Plains IDEA programs.
Institute for Academic Alliances: Given K-State’s success with Great Plains
IDEA and its leadership in developing collaborative higher education distance
programs, we received funding from the Department of Education in 2004 to
establish the Institute for Academic Alliances (IAA). The IAA provides support
to develop and implement collaborative distance academic program alliances.
The IAA has initiated and manages a number of collaborative alliances in
addition to the Great Plains IDEA.
AG*IDEA: In March 2008, the scope of the Great Plains IDEA expanded
beyond the human sciences to include agriculture and related programs. The
Agriculture Interactive Distance Education Alliance (AG*IDEA) currently
includes 28 land grant universities offering degrees in agriculture and related
sciences. AG*IDEA will be capable of offering six graduate certificates in
agriculture-related programs by 2011. K-State was one of the four founding
members of AG*IDEA and, through the IAA, manages the program.
Big 12 Engineering Consortium: This collaborative program was formally
established in 2008 and was intiated in the area of Nuclear Engineering. The
Consortium enables students to enroll at any Big 12 school and take online
nuclear engineering courses taught by Kansas State University, Texas A&M
University, University of Missouri, and the University of Texas‐Austin without
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
having to deal with credit transfer. Nine online courses in nuclear engineering
are currently offered by the Consortium, as well as a summer institute that
engages students in hands‐on training at the UT reactor in Austin. The Big 12 is
currently considering the development of collaborative, online programs in other
engineering fields.
Cooperative Relationships with Community Colleges: In addition to these
various inter-institutional alliances, K-State also provides nine bachelor’s degree
completion programs through distance education and has signed 44 2+2
agreements with community colleges in Kansas. This arrangement facilitates the
acquisition of bachelor’s degrees from K-State by place-bound students from
across the state of Kansas.
Increasing Access through Distance Learning: Through distance education, KState currently offers 380 courses, 14 bachelor’s degree completion programs, 20
masters and eight certificate programs. K-State is currently developing 29 new
online courses, as well as two new bachelor’s degree completion programs, two new
masters programs, and three new online certificate programs.
Faculty Workloads: Data from the University of Delaware’s National Study of
Instructional Costs and Productivity clearly shows that, compared to our peer
institutions, across a wide range of departments, K-State is (1) more efficient in
terms of total student credit hours produced and FTE students taught, and (2) less
costly in terms of instructional expense per student credit hour and per FTE student.
In addition, reductions in our budget resulted in the elimination of over 30 faculty
positions. In addition, we have held over 75 faculty positions vacant or have filled
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
them with temporary or part-time instructors. Enrollments have risen and we are
generating more student credit hours. We believe that our faculty teaching loads
reflect a very efficient use of resources and productivity, particularly given the
recent decrease in available personnel.
An important aspect of a research university is the amount of faculty time allocated
to conducting research. This research generates a significant portion of funding for
the university. In fact, 20% of our overall university budget is funded by extramural
support obtained directly from faculty research grants. That funding typically comes
from outside the state, significantly enhances the educational experience, and
frequently results in knowledge that enhances the State economy. In thinking about
increasing faculty instructional assignments, we must recognize that any efficiency
gained with respect to teaching loads may be outweighed by the loss of extramural
funding. For example, our FY 2009 level of extramural funding at K-State ($133
million) was generated by faculty members whose research assignments totaled
approximately 300 FTE.
This means that each tenth of faculty research time
generated over $45,000 of extramural funding. Shifting faculty assignments toward
teaching and away from research could significantly affect our extramural funding.
Maximizing the use of existing classroom and laboratory space: K-State, as the
state’s land grant university, is unique because a significant amount of lab space is
devoted to activities related to animal maintenance, crop production, and
horticultural experimentation. K-State’s classroom space is efficiently utilized.
Nonetheless, we will be conducting an audit of all spaces to better document where
efficiencies can be improved, especially during summer and intersession terms.
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Library Subscription Database Consortia: University libraries participate in
three consortia: Greater Western Library Alliance, Regents Libraries Database
Consortium, and EPSCOR Science Information Group. Because we are members of
these consortia, we pay for database subscriptions at a lower rate than if we
subscribed to these services on our own. In addition, the database memberships and
licenses allow us to avoid hardcopy procurement costs.
Off-Site Library Storage Agreement: About two years ago we signed an
agreement with the University of Kansas to lease storage space for 500,000 volumes
currently being housed in facilities on the Manhattan campus but not accessed
frequently. While there are costs associated with this approach (e.g., a onetime
relocation cost for these materials, an annual lease payment for the space and
transportation costs of needed materials), they are considerably less than the cost of
constructing and staffing a book warehouse facility on our campus.
Sharing of Technology and Specialized Equipment: There are continuous efforts
to create research centers and spaces to share expensive research equipment and
expertise among academic departments. Early examples were the KSU Electronic
Design Laboratory and the Biotechnology Center. Most recently, the Lipidomics
Center and the Bioinfomatics Center have been established. Other examples involve
the sharing of technology, such as equipment for confocal microscopy, laser research
and flow cytometry. Our research centers are often formed with an infusion of
federal research dollars, allowing a shift of funding from state resources.
Furthermore, they provide our faculty members with the equipment, skills, and
expertise to be successful in applications for additional research funding as well as
allowing us to avoid needless duplication of equipment.
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Electronic Student Billing: We now produce only on-line bills for our students.
This decision has resulted in savings for printing, envelopes and postage—and
produced a favorable change in bill collection patterns. For example, our volume of
electronic payments increased from 8% of the total cashiering volume over 25%
since 2007. At the beginning of this fiscal year we began offering online signup for
the University managed Tuition Installment Payment Plan. This plan provides
students a low cost and effective method for spreading tuition costs over a longer
time during a semester. On-line access has increased plan usage by approximately
35%.
Electronic Dissertation and Thesis Submission: A year ago we instituted a policy
requiring all doctoral and masters graduate students to submit their dissertations,
theses, and reports in electronic (PDF) form. Under this new policy, students submit
their documents to the K-State Research Exchange, a website developed for that
purpose. The time it takes Graduate School and university library staff to review
and process these documents has been greatly reduced and approved documents are
typically available online within a few days of submission. In addition, our students
save the cost of reproducing their dissertations and theses. This approach also
means that K-State theses and dissertations are automatically indexed by Google and
other search engines—thus greatly expanding access to academic research done by
our students.
Electronic Conferencing: Agricultural Research and Extension is using new media
technologies such as Wimba and Connect to facilitate employee training at its remote
sites located across the state.
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Reorganizing Agricultural Research/Extension Media Services: Agricultural
Research and Extension has merged its print, radio, and television news functions
into one administrative unit. The synergy between these areas is resulting in higher
quality releases for all news media outlets and local Extension offices. This
approach more appropriately meets audience demands, represents a more efficient
administrative structure, and capitalizes on the use of technology to deliver our
messages more effectively.
Developing a Learning Management System: K-State has developed and
deployed a very functional in-house learning management system known as K-State
Online. This system allows K-State faculty to supplement traditional face-to-face
instruction with additional web-based information and to efficiently communicate
with students electronically. K-State Online is used in more than 2,300 of our
courses. This system is also used as our platform for providing distance courses.
Because we developed this comprehensive system in-house and maintain it with
existing university staff, we are able to avoid uncontrollable annual increases in
license, maintenance and external support costs associated with commercial products
such as BlackBoard.
Grounds Maintenance: We are expanding the use of technology to reduce water
use and we are using mulching mowers to help reduce fertilizer costs. Employees are
using bicycles rather than motorized vehicles as they conduct routine campus
grounds tasks such as watering and weeding. Additionally, we have optimized
landscape/grounds staff size through better lawn maintenance scheduling and
equipment selection.
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Cash Management: We have centralized our cash management and check writing
processes through the State of Kansas.
Transactional activity processing: Transactional activity processing through the
state allows us to be part of the state financial reports, eliminating the need to have
an external audit of our independent annual reports.
Processing of student refunds: We are pursuing plans that will require all student
refunds to be processed electronically. Currently 50% of such transactions are
processed electronically.
Business Procurement Card Usage: K-State has traditionally been a heavy user of
the State’s business procurement card (BPC). We are increasing training, card
issuances and card limits, consolidating card types, and analyzing all purchases as
they come through the system. For transactions appropriate for BPC usage, we are
educating the campus on the benefits of using the card.
Outsourcing: KSU has already outsourced its bookstore, K-State Student Union
food service, vending services and a great deal of facilities work. Further
outsourcing opportunities will be continually explored.
Energy Conservation Projects: K-State has entered into an energy conservation
project to replace well systems and lighting. The annual savings will be
approximately $400K that will be used to repay the investment. Initiatives to reduce
energy consumption are being pursued in two major areas. The first involves
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
engaging an Energy Services Company to examine a number of potential
infrastructure investments that focus on saving energy. The second involves
developing an in-house behavior-based energy saving program that will be funded
from energy savings.
Electronic Course Catalogs: We have replaced our printed undergraduate and
graduate course catalogs with electronic versions and no longer publish paper
copies. The electronic catalogs, which operate in a secure hosted environment at an
off-campus site, provide timely information in a user-oriented, searchable format.
The electronic versions replace a 300 page undergraduate catalog and a 200 page
graduate catalog that in the past had been revised and reprinted on a two-year cycle.
The printed catalogs had been provided to entering students, transfer students,
faculty, and university departments at no cost. In converting to the electronic
catalog, we are saving more than 7 million pages of paper every two years.
Converting Paper Documents to Electronic Form: There is an on-going effort to
move space-consuming, difficult-to-access paper documents to an electronic
environment. More than 2.5 million paper documents are now stored securely in
electronic form for the Office of Student Financial Aid, the Registrar’s Office, the
Human Resources Department, K-State Salina administrative offices, Environmental
Health and Safety, Academic Services and the Graduate School.
Recycling: K-State has partnered with the City of Manhattan (using City and
University funds) to establish a recycling center on campus. We also manage a
website that advertises used equipment (e.g., computers, printers, furniture) for use
by the members of the university community. K-State has a desk-side recycling
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
program that resulted in recycling 998 tons of basic materials last year – about 16%
of our waste stream. We also recycle electronic waste. Last year we collected 43
tons of computers and related equipment that were inoperable or antiquated. We
also recycled almost 5 tons of rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries, 2 tons of
ballasts and more than 10,000 fluorescent, compact fluorescent and incandescent
bulbs. Additionally, we recycled more than a ton of silver-containing waste.
Housing and Dining Services is an active recycler and has an All Taste…No Waste
campaign to reduce the amount of excess food that ultimately ends up in the waste
stream.
Deteriorating Infrastructure
We appreciate the infusion of deferred maintenance funds and ARRA maintenance
funds. We are making progress on the approved projects. However, the buildings
on our campus are the oldest in the Regents system and the amount of funding
needed to bring them into acceptable condition is the largest in the system. As a
result, our building and infrastructure renewal costs approach $300 million. We are
spending proportionately too much of our physical plant operating budget on
emergency repairs—which causes us to neglect some of the routine maintenance we
should be performing, thus compounding the problem.
National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF)
Your historic investment in K-State pays off. For example, K-State’s selection as
the location of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) will forever
change Kansas. NBAF is a critically important project that will protect the
American food supply and agriculture economy and will provide hundreds of
valuable jobs. When complete, it will serve as the nation's premier research facility
for developing vaccines and countermeasures for diseases that threaten livestock and
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KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee for Higher Education
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
other animals, which agricultural and bioterrorism experts consider a national
priority. The $650 million research facility will make a tremendous impact on the
economic future of the State of Kansas. Just recently the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security announced it will work with Congress to dedicate $40 million
more for the construction of NBAF to bring the cumulative funding to more than
$150 million. With your help, K-State, the KBA and the Department of Homeland
Security are making steady progress.
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. While we understand
fiscal reality, we will always strive for excellence through hard work, creativity and
collaborative decision making. We are involving our best people in determining
how to meet our purpose during these difficult times. But we cannot be successful
by ourselves—we need your help. We will do our part to help the Governor and
Legislature achieve the best for the State of Kansas. I would be pleased to answer
any questions you may have.
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